Bernard Schoenburg: Guns, religion, genocide a volatile mix

Emotions can run high over the issue of guns, but mixing in religion and genocide might be adding unnecessary fuel to the fire.

Emotions can run high over the issue of guns, but mixing in religion and genocide might be adding unnecessary fuel to the fire.

The April edition of a free newspaper offered on a stand in the Statehouse rotunda, GunNews, features on its front page a replica of the Jewish star-shaped patch, with the word “Jude” in the center, that some Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe were forced to wear on their clothes.

The article illustrated with this symbol is about a recent opinion from the public access counselor’s office of Attorney General LISA MADIGAN, based on a request from The Associated Press, that under current law, names of people with Illinois firearm owner identification cards should be made public, as should expiration dates of their FOID cards. Addresses and telephone numbers should be kept private, under that opinion. State police had earlier denied a request to make the names public.

A lawsuit brought in Peoria County by some gun owners opposed to disclosure has led a judge there to block release of FOID cardholder names as that case progresses. Lawmakers also are considering legislation to keep the names private.

Among those who have weighed in on the controversy is LEE WILLIAMS of Springfield, whose job title is investigative reporter with the Illinois Policy Institute, a think tank. He wrote about Madigan’s “edict,” which he called “bad policy that could put guns into the hands of criminals, and give them a handy database of unarmed victims.”

Enter GunNews, published monthly by Guns Save Life, an organization whose president is JOHN BOCH of Savoy in Champaign County. It ran Williams’ opinion piece on its front page, but used the headline “Madigan’s List,” which Boch said is a reference to “Schindler’s List,” a film about a businessman who worked to save Jews in the Holocaust, but we get the point. The headline on the policy institute’s website had been “FOID Card Lunacy.” The caption under the Jewish star in GunNews was “Only harassment and persecution of gun owners will follow public release of FOID card records.”

Being Jewish and the son of a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, I considered use of the star jarring, so I called the Anti-Defamation League in Chicago. LONNIE NASATIR, director of the ADL’s six-state Midwest region, called the use of the star inappropriate as a way to show frustration with the attorney general’s stand.

“It’s an analogy that … potentially trivializes the history of six million Jews and others who perished in the Holocaust,” Nasatir said.

As it turns out, the Illinois Policy Institute basically agreed. The organization, said Springfield-based executive vice president KRISTINA RASMUSSEN, gave GunNews permission to reprint Williams’ article, but “had zero involvement in the design of the piece, and nowhere in the article did Williams liken FOID cardholders to Jews during World War II. We find this imagery offensive and distracting from the issue at hand. We have asked Gun News to remove the PDF from their website.”

Boch didn’t criticize “the friendly people at the Illinois Policy Institute,” but thinks the ADL is on the wrong side of the gun rights issue. He said release of names of FOID cardholders would harass and demonize them, just as Jews were in World War II.

“I don’t believe … that people of the Jewish faith have a monopoly on the symbols of the religion,” said Boch, a Christian.

“Given the opinions of those on the political left in our society,” he added, “frankly, I think a lot of people in our society would like to see gun owners either imprisoned or exterminated.”

He also referred me to one of his affiliated groups I hadn’t heard of — Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. A message of that group, according to its website, is how some governments historically have deprived people of firearms and then “wiped them from the face of the earth.”

BOB MEIER, interim executive director, who splits time between Chicago and DeKalb, said he’s Lutheran and was national director of the Libertarian Party in the 1970s. He said he left the National Rifle Association to join the JPFO, which he estimated has 4,700 or more members nationally, because it is truer to the cause, and “embodies none of the compromise that typified groups like the NRA.”

Meier also said he often has seen Jewish stars displayed by gun owners — a display he believes involves no malice.

NATALIE BAUER, spokeswoman for Madigan, said that for her office, “This isn’t really an issue over gun control or gun rights. This is an open government issue.” She said the attorney general’s job was to interpret current applicable law about what constitutes proper transparency.

“It’s up to the General Assembly to weigh in on the larger public policy issues that are raised as a result of that analysis,” Bauer said.

Bernard Schoenburg is political columnist for The State Journal- Register. He can be reached at 788-1540 or bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com.